Chapter 123
Chapter 123
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 122
Chapter Title: Light in the Darkness (1)
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The safe house is spacious.
It's what you'd call a house with a yard, complete with a wall.
The wall, which should have been securely closed, was now wide open, stained with soot.
A forced entry using explosives.
Had it not been for the gunshots, the darkness, and the explosions that had already rung out several times, the blast would have been powerful enough to draw and hold everyone's attention.
There are many people in the yard.
So many, in fact, that it seemed as if all of Iron Mask's remaining subordinates had gathered here.
Intruders had entered the yard of the safe house—a company asset that should have been the safest place—but Kanghyeok felt no anger.
Instead, he was relieved.
They had willingly walked into a trap.
*Vrooom.*
No one paid any mind to Kanghyeok's sports car entering the yard. But as he slowed down, as if about to stop, they turned their gazes.
"Was there another car coming...?"
The man trailed off, staring blankly at Kanghyeok's car.
Kanghyeok's car was coated entirely in bulletproof paint. It wouldn't even scratch if stabbed with a knife, and it easily deflected small-caliber pistol rounds.
Its low chassis was designed to cut through the air, making it impractical for carrying cargo.
The exterior, focused solely on speeding through the city, was reminiscent of a predator, looking menacing.
Especially here, now, to these people.
"How in the world did you get here...?"
"What happened? Did the drone stop working?"
"No! They're all functioning normally."
"Then how did that car know to come here!"
The men, instinctively realizing the car belonged to Kanghyeok, chattered in panicked voices.
In front of them, Kanghyeok pushed the lever for the high beams with the back of his hand.
*Flash!*
"Ugh!"
"Damn it!"
Everyone raised a hand to shield their eyes. At the same time, Kanghyeok's eyes quickly scanned the brightly lit yard.
There were four vehicles in total, their trunks facing the safe house.
*'Twenty-three men in total.'*
Kanghyeok counted them in groups of five, assessing their armament as well.
*'Four with rifles. The rest have pistols?'*
Perhaps these were the last of them.
He had a feeling.
Their gear was light, perhaps because they hadn't expected him to show up here, but they wore combat vests and had military knives slung over their shoulders, giving them the air of an elite unit.
"G-get the guns! Hurry!"
Two men moved toward a car parked in the corner.
And then it happened.
*Vroooom!*
He stomped on the accelerator, causing the men to flinch and step back. Kanghyeok cranked the wheel, sending the sports car hurtling toward the men running for the other car.
"Wh-whoa!"
"Shit!"
The low chassis and the bumper, designed to reduce air resistance, were sharp.
*VROOOOOM!*
Seeing it charge at them with a deafening roar, the men froze like small animals caught in headlights.
Inescapable death.
An inevitable death, arriving with the sports car before they had a chance to react.
*CRASH!*
He slammed into the two men but didn't take his foot off the accelerator.
*CRUNCH!*
After running them over, he killed all the lights and turned the wheel toward the other men.
*VROOOOOM!*
In the deep darkness, the engine's roar tore through the silence.
Using the black sports car, which had blended perfectly into the night with its lights off, Kanghyeok charged at them.
"Get out of the way!"
*CRASH!*
Everyone in its path scrambled to escape, but he managed to hit one of them.
"Kuhh!"
The man desperately gripped the edge of the hood, as if determined not to be dragged underneath.
"Hold on tight."
Kanghyeok muttered, looking at the man glaring at him through the windshield.
Then he charged straight for the wall.
*CRUNCH!*
"Gah!"
The moment the bumper hit the wall, the man's eyes widened.
Dark red blood immediately gushed from his mouth. As Kanghyeok backed the car up, the body slid off the hood with a soft scrape.
*Rat-a-tat-tat!*
Bullets flew in from behind.
*Rat-a-tat-tat-tat! Ping! Ping!*
The furious barrage of bullets created faint cracks in the rear window, and the impact of the shots reached Kanghyeok inside, but it was the men who grew desperate.
"Goddammit!"
"What kind of insane..."
The paint job wasn't even scratched.
Realizing the entire car was bulletproof, a look of bewildered despair spread across their faces, and shouts to keep firing echoed out.
"No! Cease fire! Cease fire!"
"It's bulletproof! It's useless!"
"Reform the line! Spread out!"
Amidst the chaos, one man ran for the car carrying the rifles. But the car's body had been crumpled by Kanghyeok's earlier impact, and the door wouldn't open no matter how hard he tried.
"Argh! Dammit!"
*Vroom.*
Hearing the engine, the man turned his head just as another man's hand pulled him away, causing him to stumble and fall.
As the men hastily scattered, Kanghyeok tore through the yard in his sports car.
*VROOOOOM!*
"Move! Move!"
"It's coming this way!"
The men weren't even given a chance to form an attack line.
"The driver's side window is open! Aim there!"
Even in the dark, you could tell if the window of a car speeding perilously close was there or not.
As one man yelled at the top of his lungs, the men with rifles took cover behind cars or against the safe house wall and took aim at the sports car.
*VROOOOOM!*
But accurately aiming at the driver's seat of a car moving so erratically in the dark was no easy task.
"Dammit."
A man gritting his teeth shifted his gaze to the sports car's tires.
He immediately shouldered his rifle, aimed precisely at a tire, and let loose a burst of fire.
*Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat! BANG!*
"Got it!"
After mercilessly peppering the ground and the car's body, a bullet finally found its mark and shredded the tire.
*Screech!*
The sports car's movement slowed considerably.
He immediately raised his muzzle toward the car but then spat a curse and jerked his head to the side.
*'Damn it! Was that his plan?'*
The slowly moving sports car came to a stop in front of the other vehicles.
Those cars were loaded with oil drums.
If they carelessly pulled the trigger and destroyed even a single drum, their objective would be completely lost.
*Click!*
The men exchanged hushed words over the radio.
"Cease fire. He's stopped in front of the target."
*Click!*
(Drag him out. With the tire blown, he can't escape.)
*Click-click!*
Starting with the man who pressed the radio button twice in acknowledgement, the riflemen began to approach Kanghyeok.
As they moved, they took off their gloves, using their pale fingers to exchange hand signals in the dark.
Frontal approach is dangerous.
Move to the flank.
Then, eliminate the target.
The men nodded and, as the others watched, surrounded Kanghyeok's sports car.
They closed the distance significantly, wary of damaging the oil drums in the other cars.
The moment one of them moved toward the driver's side, revealing himself as he pushed his body and rifle forward...
*BOOM!*
...the man collapsed, everything above his neck completely obliterated by a shotgun blast.
"Shit!"
The man following right behind him spat a curse and jerked to the side. A faint metallic sound came from inside the car.
A moment later, he saw the muzzle of a gun poking out through the car window, aimed right at him.
*'A pistol? No...'*
He was questioning the unusually large barrel for a pistol when...
*BOOM!*
...the wide spread of the shotgun blast riddled the man's face and chest with holes.
*BOOM! BOOM!*
The shotgun fired in rapid succession, tearing apart the ground and the man who had fallen on it.
"Take his gun!"
A man behind the car shouted, but everyone knew it was impossible.
And so, the remaining two men didn't dare approach the driver's side, instead circling around the passenger seat.
*Click-clack.*
Kanghyeok unfolded the shotgun and aimed it at the passenger-side window.
*BOOM! CRASH!*
The man in front of the passenger seat was the next to fall.
"Fuck!"
He probably never imagined the bulletproof window would be blown away so easily.
The man hit by the blast died instantly, while the other dropped to the ground, staring at the shattered window.
With the bulletproof glass that had protected him now broken, it finally felt like a fair fight.
*Click.*
The man attached a military knife to the end of his rifle and held his breath.
Just then, the driver's side door creaked open.
*'He's out. Behind? In front?'*
As the man gripped his rifle like a spear, glancing between the front and back of the car, an urgent voice called out from behind him.
"Above!"
"What?"
The man snapped his head up, and his eyes met Kanghyeok's, who was now on top of the sports car.
Just as the man had fixed a bayonet to his rifle in anticipation of close-quarters combat, Kanghyeok was also holding a kukri.
He had no other weapons, and because of that, there was a palpable something in the air.
Pressure.
The menacing pressure that came not from a firearm, but from a blade.
"Kuh!"
Before the man could even raise his rifle, Kanghyeok leaped from the roof of the car.
*Thud!*
Kanghyeok slammed into the man, knocking him down, and immediately twisted his body to mount him, raising the kukri high.
*Bang!*
One of the men behind them fired a pistol, but the bullet struck a completely different spot.
*Shunk!*
After plunging the kukri into the man's throat, Kanghyeok shot a venomous glare at the men behind him.
*'Sixteen left.'*
He had dealt with all the riflemen.
The rest were armed only with pistols and knives.
If he could just take care of them, all of Iron Mask's men who had crept into this city would be eliminated.
*Bang!*
Another man pulled the trigger, but just like before, the shot went wide.
The pistol's short range might have been a factor.
But the real reason was likely that the oil drums couldn't be destroyed.
To these men, the drums behind Kanghyeok were precious enough to risk their lives for.
They couldn't be destroyed, nor could an intruder like Kanghyeok be allowed to linger near them.
That's why he knew.
That they would come to him.
That they would approach like moths to a flame, even though they couldn't risk firing their guns recklessly.
As Kanghyeok darted between his sports car and the car loaded with drums, the men who had been taking cover revealed themselves, just as he'd expected.
*Click!*
"Move carefully."
*Click!*
"He's near the objective."
*Click!*
"Be cautious. The target must be eliminated."
The scattered men exchanged radio messages as they closed in on the car where Kanghyeok was hiding.
Iron Mask's men had the superior numbers.
And yet, they couldn't feel at ease, for two reasons.
The drums they had to protect were too close.
And the person they had to face was Kanghyeok.
"Hoo!"
A man gripping his pistol tightly puffed out his cheeks and exhaled.
Then, he lunged toward where he thought Kanghyeok was.
Two men covered his back.
From the opposite side, three men moved in at once.
*Thwack!*
And so, everyone saw it.
The sound, like a thick rope being severed with a knife, and the crimson blood that shot into the air.
"Gak! Gak!"
The man clutched his throat and dropped to his knees, and in front of him, Kanghyeok drew a pistol.
*Bang!*
*'Fourteen.'*
A distance of barely two meters.
He fired the pistol with one hand, but it was more than close enough to hit the head.
*Bang! Bang!*
It was also close enough for the men approaching from behind to pull their triggers at Kanghyeok without hesitation.
*Thump!*
Kanghyeok, hit in the back and just below the nape of his neck, ground his teeth and moved his eyes and the hand holding the kukri.
The first thing he saw?
The bewildered eyes of the men, shocked that Kanghyeok wasn't dead despite being shot.
Toward those eyes, Kanghyeok moved the hand holding the pistol.